Another Little Christmas Murder

by Lorna Nicholl Morgan

  She opened the door, and Inigo followed her in, closing it behind him. It was a large room, furnished in the same old-fashioned style as the others, illuminated now by two candles standing upon the mantelpiece. Ledgrove lay on the bed, a mound of bedclothes over him, his grey hair in wild disarray, his face drawn and pallid, with a stubble of beard about the chin.

  ‘He was like this when I came in,’ Dylis whispered. ‘His hands were cut and burned, so I bandaged them, and I’ve been trying to bring him round with brandy. But I can’t think why Ashley should have taken off his boots and tucked him up …’

  Frowning, Inigo sat down on the edge of the bed, just as the valet opened tired, bloodshot eyes, to stare fearfully up at them. But his expression changed as Inigo said, ‘It’s all right. You’re quite safe now. I’m Inigo Brown, and this young lady’s a friend of mine.’

  ‘Thank God, sir!’ Ledgrove reached out a thin hand to clutch at his sleeve. ‘I’d know you by the likeness to Mr Warner. Very alike, you are. They got him, didn’t they? I was trying to get up there to see, but I came over funny. Is he dead? Just tell me that.’

  ‘Yes, he’s dead,’ Inigo confirmed sombrely, and sighing, the valet closed his eyes for a moment. The next, and they were wide open, staring with a bitter anger, and his voice, though weak, was urgent.

  ‘It was murder, sir, and I’d take my solemn oath on it. Mr Warner was a prisoner, in his own house, you might say, ever since his last illness. He got me to post that letter to you, without his wife knowing, because he wanted to alter his will and leave everything to you. He was afraid she’d get wind of it, see, if he got his solicitor along. So he thought if you came on a chance visit, as it were, with a friend, he could alter his will on the sly, and me and the friend could be witnesses, and you’d be able to see him right in case of trouble. He reckoned he wouldn’t live long, even if they let him, and he wanted it all squared up nice before he went. He was a good man, sir, and now he’s gone it’s up to you to see they get what’s coming to ’em.’

  ‘I intend to,’ Inigo said, and Dylis was startled at the change in his face. ‘Why did my uncle marry her?’

  Ledgrove sighed again. ‘She made a dead set at him, and he didn’t stand a chance. I saw what was coming, with him feeling twenty years younger and her making up to him something awful to watch. And after they were married, you never saw such a happy couple, or so people thought. But not me. I knew she’d got her fancy man around, even while she was running after Mr Warner. She guessed I knew something, too. She hated me like poison, but Mr, Warner, he was obstinate in some ways, and wouldn’t let me go.

  ‘The trouble started soon after we got back from abroad. He didn’t want to come back, said it would be too quiet for her. He didn’t know that was what she’d married him for chiefly, this house here and the one over the border. I don’t know the real rights of it, but he must have come to some arrangement with her, for he sacked the woman and her two daughters who used to look after the place, and instead we had two menservants. That’s what she called them, but they looked more like gaolbirds to me.’

  ‘Vauxhall and Ridley?’ Inigo asked.

  ‘That’s what they call themselves. But I reckon the police know ’em by other names. I can’t tell you just what’s been going on, but it’s something dirty and there’s money in it, you mark my words. They knew I’d never shop them, because of Mr Warner. He was that far gone on her at first he gave in to her over everything. But money was what she wanted, and not being a wealthy man, I suppose he gave in again over this funny business. That’s how I figure he came to turn over his two houses to her and her friends. Old Carpenter’s in it, too. I don’t mind him so much, because he doesn’t put on airs. But he’d sell his own grandmother for the sight of a whisky bottle.’

  ‘He wasn’t a friend of Mr Brown, then?’ Dylis queried.

  ‘Never saw him before she came here. No, he’ll be another of her nice friends, Miss, and he’ll go on being her friend, so long as she doesn’t stop the drink. She’s too canny for that.’

  Inigo asked, in a tone of suppressed emotion, ‘Who killed my uncle?’

  ‘The one I’ve been telling you about, sir, her fancy man. He turns up here every so often, to keep an eye on things, and on her, if you ask me.’

  ‘What is his name, do you know?’

  ‘Crane, they call him. Don’t know his other name. It’s always Mr Crane this, and Mr Crane that. “Get Mr Crane’s room ready.” … Oh yes, he always sleeps here, or almost always.’

  ‘What sort of voice has he?’ Dylis asked, recalling that Inigo had heard Theresa in conversation with someone whose voice he could not place.

  ‘Just an ordinary sort of voice, I’d say, Miss. Quite pleasant, nicely spoken …’

  ‘What does he look like, then?’

  ‘That I can’t tell you. I never saw him face to face. He’s a bit shy, is Mr Crane. But I’ve heard him talking to her, because there was only one room they used, and that was hers, after Mr Warner was taken so bad. It’s not right to be talking like this to you, Miss, but what is, is, and there’s no way of getting round it.’

  ‘Don’t you worry about me,’ Dylis said. ‘My opinion of Mrs Brown was not too good in the first place.’

  ‘A woman’s instinct. You can’t beat it. She’s a wrong ’un all right, although I don’t say she’d ever have gone as far as murder, if it hadn’t been for him. But as Mr Brown was about her, so she was about this Crane. What he said was law, and she’d have married the devil and murdered him, too, I expect, if Crane had told her to.’

  ‘So he told her my uncle had to go, and that was that,’ Inigo said bitterly.

  ‘She didn’t need too much persuading to agree to it. Things had been awkward ever since Mr Warner found out about her and Crane, just after his first illness. He got me to help him dress that day. Wanted to surprise her, he said. And surprise her he did. He found ’em together, and then the lid was off with a vengeance. The next thing we knew he was back in bed with a relapse. But he wouldn’t give in. He was going to live, he told me, until he’d got his will straightened out. He had great faith in you, sir. Well, a day or so after the letter was posted, he was that on edge, expecting you every minute. I knew she was expecting Crane, but I didn’t let on to Mr Warner, not wanting to worry him.

  ‘When you dropped in as it were from nowhere, she must have been properly flummoxed. Mr Warner heard the bell ring, and sent me down to find out who it was. She and Vauxhall were below, getting drinks ready, and she said it was just some stray people who’d got stuck in the snow. And the same that time I saw you in the kitchen, Miss. You didn’t look like one of their lot, so I thought she might be telling the truth for once. I sat up for a bit with Mr Warner, after she’d brought his supper, then I made him comfortable for the night and went to my own room next door.’

  ‘There was no need for anyone to sit by him all night?’ Dylis asked.

  ‘No, Miss. Once he was on the mend, he wouldn’t have anyone with him, not after he’d found out about her. But he had a stick and knocked on the floor if he wanted anything. He wasn’t much trouble. He went off to sleep all right that night, but somehow I couldn’t do the same. Around one o’clock I thought I heard a car drive up. I hadn’t undressed, and at last I couldn’t stand it any longer. I felt there was something going on. So I went downstairs …’

  ‘That was some time after two, wasn’t it?’

  ‘About that, Miss. How did you know?’

  ‘I heard you go past my room. You were wearing slippers, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Miss. I didn’t want them to hear me, see? They were all in the drawing-room, her and him and their two precious servants. I saw the light under the door and I got down on the ground and listened. It was this Crane who’d driven up in the car I’d heard; a big, powerful car it is, or he wouldn’t have got through in that weather.’

  ‘That’ll be the one Vauxhall and Ridley were working on today,’ Inigo said. ‘She told us it was her
s.’

  ‘She never had more than one, sir, a smart blue one that Mr Warner gave her. The other is Crane’s, all right. He was in a proper stew over you getting here before him. She said how you’d brought a friend along with you, but she’d fix you both and get you away without any trouble.’

  ‘Oh, she did?’ Dylis said, with some annoyance. ‘So she thought she’d fix us? She’ll find she has to think again before she’s much older.’

  ‘I hope so, Miss, I’m sure. But you watch out …’

  ‘We’ll watch out,’ Inigo said grimly. ‘What happened then?’

  ‘Well, they kept it up for quite a while, trying to work out ways and means, but Crane got his way in the end. He reckoned it would be easy. Mr Warner was still very weak, so it wouldn’t take much to smother him in his sleep. They wouldn’t have to use much strength on him, and seeing the doctor had been coming regularly, if he called in a day or so and found his patient had died, why shouldn’t he sign a certificate? It wasn’t easy, he said, for a doctor to tell if someone died of suffocation in a case like that. She’d always taken good care to look like a loving wife when the doctor was around. Only she and her friends knew that Crane was here, or so they thought, and it was convenient the weather being so bad. It often takes off the invalids, coming in suddenly like this, and it was a good excuse for not getting the doctor at once. And if by any chance he did want an inquest, the verdict was bound to be accidental death, Crane said.

  ‘There was me, of course. I was supposed to be in the room next door, but Ridley was told off to keep an eye on me, in case I woke while Crane and Vauxhall were doing the job.’

  He fell silent, and Inigo and Dylis exchanged glances. Before either of them could speak, Ledgrove went on, with an attempt at a smile, ‘You’ve done me good. I’m getting hungry. I haven’t eaten since they got me.’

  ‘Good heavens!’ Dylis exclaimed. ‘You were …’

  ‘I was in the barn. They chucked me in there to be out of the way. They didn’t want two dead bodies on their hands. They were going to take me out in the car, as soon as they could and throw me over somewhere so it’d look as if I’d fallen, on my way to fetch the doctor.’

  ‘But why?’ Inigo asked.

  ‘They caught me listening. That woman’s got ears as long as a donkey. I got cramped up, crouching by that door, and I just shifted a bit, didn’t think I’d made any noise, but she was on to me in a minute. It was all up then. Crane had slipped out, when they grabbed me in, but those two dirty gaolbirds fixed me up nicely with ropes and a gag to stop me raising the roof, and they even thought to put boots on my feet instead of slippers, and a coat, and a hat to chuck down after me so I’d look all of a piece. The faithful valet come to a sticky end. That Vauxhall made a joke about it, but to give her her due she was looking a bit sick and had to have a couple of drinks to pull her round. Then they stuck me out in the barn, because I’d got to be alive when I went over, or it might look fishy. They fed me with water, and nothing else …’

  ‘I’ll get you something,’ Dylis said. ‘If you think you could eat it.’

  ‘I can eat all right. I’m a lot tougher than I look. But you’d better go carefully, Miss. I’m warning you …’

  ‘I’m warning you, too, Dyl,’ Inigo said rising. ‘You’ve taken enough risks for one night. We’ve got to work this out together.’

  She looked from him to Ledgrove and nodded, apparently calm. But her throat felt dry as she asked, ‘Just one more thing. How did you get out of the barn?’

  Ledgrove looked ruefully down at his bandaged hands. ‘They’ve got an oil heater in there, Miss. They use the barn, d’you see, for their goings on. I was too weak to do anything when they first chucked me in … when that Vauxhall knocks you out, you stay knocked out for quite a while. But tonight I got desperate, and being a bit stronger, I held my wrists over the stove until I’d burned through the ropes. Then I got the rest of me loose. There’s a small window at the back covered in canvas, so I smashed it and managed to get through. It was as much as I could do to walk, but I got under cover. I saw lights flashing about, and knew they were after me. So I hid under a bush, and a bit later I heard a lot of shouting and running, but not my way, so I thought it was too good a chance to miss of getting into the house and seeing if Mr Warner was alive or dead. And I knew you were about somewhere, sir, but when I got as far as the dining-room, I came over funny, and I don’t remember any more.’

  He closed his tired eyes and Inigo said in an undertone, ‘Ashley must have picked him up then. We wondered where he’d got to.’

  ‘I don’t like it at all,’ Dylis whispered back. ‘I’ve a nasty feeling he might be …’

  ‘Crane? Surely not. Theresa’s been anything but pleasant to him.’

  Dylis shrugged. ‘She’s a smart little actress.’ She glanced at Ledgrove, lying so still and pallid that he appeared to be with them in the flesh only. ‘I must get him some food. He looks terrible, doesn’t he?’

  ‘He does. But I think you’d better wait a bit first. They’re all at sixes and sevens downstairs. I’ll try and get them out into the grounds, so that you can slip down and do your stuff. Then I’m going to talk to Theresa …’

  ‘Don’t you think you’d better get the police? This isn’t a one-man job, I should say.’

  ‘And leave you here alone with all this business going on? Not likely.’

  ‘Couldn’t you send Charlie?’

  ‘I suppose so. But he’s a journalist, and this is a family affair. I don’t want it broadcast to the nation.’

  ‘Maybe not. But you can’t hush up a murder, can you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was never mixed up in one before. But I don’t want to raise a hue and cry until I know positively who did it. Particularly with the local police.’

  ‘And you propose to find out by asking Theresa?’

  ‘She’ll tell me,’ Inigo said. ‘Just give me fifteen minutes alone with the little lady.’

  ‘Well, you’d better work fast, or I shall start walking to the police station myself.’

  ‘We’ve got the car going now.’

  ‘How do you know someone hasn’t busted it up in the meantime?’

  ‘Oh, Lord!’ He clutched a hand to his forehead. ‘I’d better get below and see what’s going on. You stay here with Ledgrove and keep the door barricaded, in case anyone comes looking for him. It’s better for him to be hungry than dead.’

  ‘All right,’ Dylis said wearily. ‘But don’t leave me too long. If there’s going to be a scrap, you may find me right behind you with a poker.’ She added, as he opened the door and looked out, ‘Inigo! Do be careful.’

  ‘You bet. Watchful Willie, that’s me.’

  He went out, and somewhat reluctantly, she closed the door and put a chair under the handle, with another on top of that. Ledgrove had fallen into an uneasy doze. One of his eyelids twitched spasmodically. Dylis lighted a cigarette from the candle flame and sat down to wait.

  Chapter XVI

  Inigo, reaching the head of the stairs and about to descend at a run, paused as Theresa, accompanied by Mr Carpenter, appeared round the bend in the corridor from the direction of Dylis’s room. Mr Carpenter was weaving from side to side, and his shadow, cast upon the walls by Theresa’s candle, looked like that of an eccentric dancer. She called out:

  ‘We’ve been looking for Dylis and Mr Ashley. But we haven’t seen either of them. Have you?’

  ‘Ashley’s not in his room,’ Inigo said truthfully. ‘They’re somewhere downstairs, I expect, or in the grounds. I was just going down to see.’

  ‘So mysterious of them, isn’t it?’ Theresa said. He noted, as she came abreast of him, that she had regained her composure, on the surface at any rate, and her eyes, looking up at him above the light of the candle, were blankly innocent. He found it hard to realise that she had any other side to her nature. He countered:

  ‘No more mysterious than the behaviour of some other people around this house. We’ve
all been diving in and out like a lot of lunatics.’

  ‘Lunatics is right,’ Mr Carpenter said thickly. ‘Damned lot of lunatics is what I’ve said all along.’

  ‘Please,’ she admonished him. ‘You’ve been so helpful up to now, don’t spoil yourself.’

  Exactly how Mr Carpenter had proved so helpful was one of the things Inigo intended to find out. He said:

  ‘I want to talk to you, Theresa, alone.’

  ‘Of course, my dear, but not now. We’re just going to look in these other rooms …’ She waved the candle in the direction where lay the rooms of Best and Ashley. Not while he could stop them, Inigo thought. It was on the cards that they were really looking for Ledgrove, if the whole thing were not just a mad dream, and he did not want the valet to be discovered immediately. He said:

  ‘I’ve already told you, I looked and there’s no one there. Why should anyone be?’

  ‘I really don’t know. Except that all my guests seem to be a little eccentric. And you were anxious about Dylis, weren’t you?’

  ‘I still am. I thought she might be in her room, but she’s not, and Ashley isn’t in his …’

  ‘So you think I must have hidden them away somewhere? I’m afraid your family is inclined to be theatrical, Inigo. But I haven’t time to discuss such things now, my dear. I’m going to drive to Cudge. Come, Mr Carpenter.’

  But she did not wait for her drunken escort. Leaving him to follow at his own unsteady pace, she went down the stairs at a rate which in any other woman could have been described as tearing. But Theresa did not tear. She kicked up the heels of her little Alpine boots and appeared to fly through the air, so rapidly did she reach the hall below, yet withal gracefully. Inigo, now frankly furious, followed, but Mr Carpenter, with waving arms and unsteady legs, meandered in his way, all but tripping him up in the process. At the bottom, Inigo thrust him rudely to one side, sprang clear, and made for the drawing-room door through which Theresa had disappeared. On the other side, he found that luck was with him, for Theresa was venomously eyeing Charlie Best, who was impeding her progress by leaning in the communicating aperture. Charlie said in an injured way as Inigo appeared: